Let’s get right to it! Why do we create content in the first place? For search engine optimization and better ranking? Sure. For customer education? Definitely! For boosting our sales? Yes, but that one’s a bit complicated.
There are multiple ways to engage users and interactive content can increase your engagement rate. So, let’s go interactive! By its very nature, interactive content engages people in some sort of activity. Be it making choices, answering questions, or participating in other ways, it always captures attention and propels action. And, the action is exactly what we are looking for!
Let’s convince you with some solid reasoning and actionable ways to use interactive content to boost sales. Shall we?
Why Interactive Content Works?
Engages Audience
Ordinary content can make your audience see your brand as ordinary. It can easily get lost in the pool of other content. Interactive content stands out because it catches one’s attention in a jiffy and has the highest potential of going viral. In fact, 66% of marketers have reported greater audience engagement after using interactive content.
Moreover, it helps people tailored responses, rather than a standard response from brands. This piques their curiosity and fosters engagement like never before. Here is a recommendation quiz from Maybelline that allows the brand to engage leads and customers alike!
Collects Insightful Customer Data
Interactive content provides marketers with rich data about their audiences. People show their preferences through quizzes, rank themselves via assessments, or tell their financial capabilities using calculators. This is precious data that can be used to learn more about the prospects and boost sales.
For instance, let’s assume want to market an advertising agency. You can create a calculator that allows leads/ customers to estimate their paid advertising spend. Through this, you will be able to provide a solution to the customer’s pressing problems. Simultaneously, you will be able to collect customer information like their CLV, their target ROI, and even their budget.
Personalized Results & Value addition
The thing with interaction is that it takes two to tango. It is no longer about you pushing content, but about getting people to reply, tell their preferences, and share their data. It is about actually helping the customer and providing value to them through personalized responses.
Consequently, this is a solution that satisfies both parties. On one hand, it provides satisfaction and value addition to the customers as you assist them in the buyer’s journey. On the other hand, it allows marketers to increase their sales through lead segmentation and nurturing.
Brand Awareness & Recall
Marketers can use quizzes and calculators to generate brand awareness and increase retention. As they help customers know about themselves or calculate their costs without demanding anything, it is likely to foster brand image and instil brand recall.
Website Traffic
When we talk about quizzes and polls, most people relate it to social media. And, that’s not wrong. But do you know social media can be an excellent way to direct traffic to your website too?
In fact, 71% of consumers who get a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their circle. Moreover, you can link your interactive content result page to your website. This works especially great for e-commerce brands.
7 Ways To Use Interactive Content To Boost Sales
Quizzes
Needless to say, quizzes are quite popular and ultra-magnetic. Did you know that quizzes have a 2x higher conversion rate than passive content? In fact, according to interactive content stats, these quizzes are 40 times more likely to be shared by users.
Just think about it. It’s almost impossible to be on Facebook without seeing some friends sharing some kind of BuzzFeed quiz telling them what kind of friends they are. This is because they work as great lead magnets. Moreover, they help nurture the leads to conversion by providing real value and engaging them.
Experiences like these can be made in a matter of minutes through a quiz maker. In fact, you will come across many brands using quizzes to recommend the right products to their customers.
Here is a case study of Leads.PH, a brand that wanted to generate leads and brand awareness for one of its clients. Hence, it made a fun quiz asking the customer’s preferences to reveal their personality type.
Smartly enough, it placed a coupon code for a 10% discount on the results page with a CTA that led them to their website. Results? The clients fetched 42k+ leads, 120k+ visits, with a conversion rate of 36%.
Calculators
Everyone wants to know how much money they could save. Instead of reading a lot of difficult content about how much people can save or earn, a calculator makes it easy and effortless to find out. Using this smart tool in the consideration and decision stage of the buyer’s journey can do wonders. It will register your brand name in the minds of your potential buyers just at the right time and increase conversion chances.
IKEA uses this opportunity to build a custom Worktop Calculator for its potential buyers. It helps users plan their new kitchen worktop, customize it as per their preference, and calculate what it costs.
E-commerce Recommendations
The current world is all about personalization. You can’t push random products expecting your audience to buy from you. Because 80% of shoppers are more likely to buy from a company that offers personalized experiences. That’s why personalized shopping experiences have proven their worth in the e-commerce space.
Have a look at this ecommerce recommendation quiz titled “Sunglasses that suit your face the best”.
Through questions pertaining to face types, lens colour, and style, this virtual assistant tries to figure out the best glasses for the user.
Finally, this smart tool displays personalized recommendations that are linked to the e-commerce website with a CTA “Buy Now”.
Assessments
Similar to quizzes, assessments help users know about their personality by answering a few questions. However, this can be a meaningful tool for businesses as well. It can help marketers identify a need or compare their company to benchmarks.
GPYP helps property owners become expert AirBnB hosts. It built an assessment letting owners understand how well their AirBnB listing is performing. This assessment saw a 60% completion rate. Moreover, it scored 800+ conversions with a 41% conversion rate.
Forms, Polls & Surveys
These are one of the easiest tools to use for collecting feedback and user data. In fact, the one-question polls are all over social media and are used highly by brands to promote engagement.
Polls and surveys are great assets in boosting sales in the long run. They’re not aimed at direct sales, rather getting to know your target group better to improve your offering. They help your customers know you care. Moreover, it allows you to identify customer pain points and rectify them.
Look how Dunkin Donuts designed its guest satisfaction survey. This helped them understand how to improve their services.
In fact, to attract its audience, they further offered free donuts in exchange for their feedback. This benefited their sales as well.
Giveaways & Contests
Cool contests have proven its mettle in luring customers and promoting engagement. After all, who doesn’t like free products? In turn, the participants provide you with their precious data. This can be used to target them with other offers even if they do not win this time.
A great tip would be to make the contests shareable. In fact, you can ask the participants to share it with their friends to improve their winning chances. Contests can also generate authentic user-generated content which leads to increased word-of-mouth influence.
Here is an example of Walmart’s contest to win a free gift card. Now, who would skip this?
Chatbots
Thanks to artificial intelligence, chatbots have evolved to understand your customer preferences. When you can offer customers the products they love, you can increase the number of orders and improve relationships. Chatbots allows you to be available to your customers 24×7. Furthermore, the easy issue redressal helps you to garner and retain customers in the long run.
Have a look at this “Book a photographer” chatbot. It helps with the entire booking and selection process as per the customer’s preference. It also extracts relevant information from the customer, so that you can take the lead closer to sales.
But Where To Use Interactive Content To Gain Traction?
Landing Page
Starting with the most obvious, embedding your interactive content on your landing page is a great way to engage your visitors and keep them engaged. It has the potential of increasing time on the website and reducing the bounce rate.
For example, Neil Patel embeds a quiz on his blog page to lure marketers into knowing how much more traffic should they actually be getting. Through this, he can identify leads and convert them.
Pop-ups
The invention of pop-ups gave marketers an opportunity to embed fun interactive content in different formats. Some of them include exit-intent popups, timed popups, chat popups, welcome mats, and others. Placing your quizzes, polls, or contests in strategic places like these can boost customer engagement and lead generation. Moreover, popups are a great way to retain customers from leaving your website.
Misen, a cookware online store, embeds a contest in an exit-intent pop-up. People love free stuff, and the chance of winning a sizable gift card makes them stay. This helps it retain visitors, collect lead info, and lures them to avail the offer.
Social Media
Do we even need to mention this point, let alone elaborate? We assume polls or quizzes go hand in hand with social media. Avail the opportunity of the viral nature of your interactive content by embedding them on social media. Moreover, the fact that the majority of social browsers come to social media to search their favourite products is enough to understand how beneficial it could be for boosting sales. Here is a poll used by Subway on their Instagram stories. This colourful piece of interactive content asks the users their favourite cookie flavours. These elements promote instant brand recall and increase sales chances. Moreover, this is a great way to understand which product would sell more.
Emails
E-mails are a powerful and cost-effective tool for online businesses. However, no one wants to see yet another newsletter showing the latest products or promotions. Instead, try using interactive content to spice things up and provide tailored content. You can also consider including an offer along with a CTA button.
An email by Bonobos embeds a survey saying “Your opinion matters to us”. These types of emails are more likely to engage customers and provide value to them.
Retargeting Ads
Retargeting ads are a great way to capture your leads. If a prospect has visited your website but hasn’t made a purchase yet, embedding interactive content in your ads can be a nice way of reminding them of your offers.
Here is an example of an Instagram interactive ad by Thread Theory Boutique.
You can even use more effective ways of re-engaging customers using web push notification. Add interactive image and send the push notifications.
What Type Of Content Marketer Are You?
Now that you know how interactive content experiences can boost engagement and sales, what interactive content(s) are you going to start with? With some experience, we can tell that using a mix of 3-4 content types in your marketing strategy can be a great way to capture audiences from all stages of the buyer’s journey. From awareness to decision, these tactics will ensure that your boat sails (or better, sells)!
